Big Pacific shark sanctuaries created

French Polynesia, Cook Islands designate over 6 million sq. km of ocean as off-limits to finning

WASHINGTON – French Polynesia and the Cook Islands have created adjacent shark sanctuaries spanning roughly 6.7 million sq. km of ocean, a move that reflects a growing trend to protect sharks worldwide and more than doubles the area now off-limits to any shark fishing.

As many as a third of all shark species face some threat of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in part because their fins are coveted for the Asian delicacy of shark fin soup.

In the last few months, American Samoa and the Micronesian state of Kosrae have barred shark fishing off their shores, and the European Union and Venezuela have both prohibited the practice of cutting off a shark’s fins while discarding the body at sea.

French Polynesia —a group of five major archipelagoes with more than 100 islands, including Tahiti —created the world’s largest shark sanctuary at more than 4.7 million sq. km of sea Dec. 6. The Cook Islands designated its own, equal to the size of Mexico at 1.9 million sq. km, on Dec. 19.

French Polynesia had established a moratorium on shark fishing and finning in 2006, but it exempted mako sharks to win over local fishing interests. More than 20 shark species, including hammerhead and thresher sharks, swim off its shores, according to the Pew Environment Group’s global shark conservation program director, Jill Hepp.

Tekau Frere, an adviser to French Polynesia’s environment minister, said a permanent ban, which will now include makos, reflects sharks’ ecological, economic and cultural significance. Sharks, Frere wrote, “have a high value in Pacific Island cultures. . . . They are both respected and feared.”

Traditionally, French Polynesians rarely ate shark meat, Frere said, which kept the country’s annual shark catch modest, but “with the development of shark finning abroad, the demand for fins skyrocketed in late 1990s early 2000s. This trend rapidly spread to French Polynesia.”

She also noted that fishing officials embraced the idea “since they see this protection as a great value in their efforts to get a green or sustainable label for our tuna fisheries. What is more, healthy and well-protected ecosystems attract tourism.”

Teina Bishop, the Cook Islands’ minister of marine resources, voiced pride that his nation was joining so many other countries in the region in acting to ensure viable shark populations, saying, “We join our Pacific neighbors to protect this animal, which is very vital to the health of our oceans, and our culture.”

“In just a few short years, there has been a fundamental shift in the way that sharks are perceived,” Pew’s Hepp said, adding that concern over the effects of losing sharks “is now far more frightening than their misguided reputation.

“With shark fishing now legally prohibited, we are hopeful that sharks have the protections they need to recover in the same way that wolves and bears have returned in national parks on land.”